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They are simply following the market. Hybrids have become increasingly popular as the charging infrastructure is still lacklustre in many parts of the world. A

They are simply following the market. Hybrids have become increasingly popular as the charging infrastructure is still lacklustre in many parts of the world. And that's not a problem that can be solved overnight.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Even if EV charging was ubiquitous, legacy auto would sell what nets them the highest profit, which is not EVs. China’s EV market is hypercompetitive, and does not suffer legacy auto type incumbents. It’s why US automakers will likely leave China. At least we have BYD and Tesla, just gotta scale up faster. Global light vehicle TAM is 90M units/year. 20% of all vehicles sold globally last year were BEVs or PHEVs, onward and upward. https://fortune.com/2024/06/19/elon-musk-tesla-china-carmakers-gm-ford-stellantis-bank-of-america/ https://fortune.com/2024/06/19/elon-musk-tesla-china-carmake... (“Bank of America tells Detroit’s Big 3 they can’t make money in China and should just leave the hypercompetitive car market ‘as soon as they possibly can’”)
throwaway19972 2y ago
> They are simply following the market. So is global warming. This excuse rang hollow 30 years ago and it still rings hollow today.
numpad0 2y ago
Or maybe the rest of the world has way less population per area and therefore more gas stations, therefore filling up was less of a problem compared to the US...
PaulHoule 2y ago
Not sure how much it matters. I am thinking about getting a third car for the farm if I could get an inexpensive low range EV. If I am only driving to work with it or to go shopping or see a sports game at my Uni I can just it when I get home. If I need to go see a game in a distant city, well, I’ll take one of the gas cars so my son will take the EV and not the Buick to work one morning.
girvo 2y ago
Sadly (for myself) the only compact-ish plug-in hybrid that exists in my part of the world (Australia) is the Cupra Leon. Neat car, we're genuinely considering it, but it's $80,000AUD, vs. the $50,000AUD that a top-end hybrid Corolla would cost. And they're still much more expensive than my partners VW Polo... worth it for us, as we have a one car shared between the two of us, but I wish there were more compact-ish hybrids available. Honestly same goes for EVs, though the BYD stuff is starting to fill that niche quite nicely. And compact + decent range is sort of at odds with itself.
digging 2y ago
> They are simply following the market. This is badly misinformed. They make the market. When you buy a car, do you have it custom made, or do you select one that actually exists? That's exactly what happened with SUVs. SUVs didn't happen because people were begging car companies to make them something big, dangerous, and wasteful. They happened because car companies in the US found a legal loophole where they could cut costs by skirting safety and emissions regulations, while simultaneously marking up the product as a premium one. Then they ran ads to tell people SUVs were super safe [for the passengers]. So when people started buying SUVs en masse, that wasn't organic demand, it was the result of a successful national misinformation campaign (because modern SUVs and other "light trucks" are so large you're more likely to just drive over your own child without seeing them than even get in a crash).

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Even if EV charging was ubiquitous, legacy auto would sell what nets them the highest profit, which is not EVs. China’s EV market is hypercompetitive, and does not suffer legacy auto type incumbents. It’s why US automakers will likely leave China. At least we have BYD and Tesla, just gotta scale up faster. Global light vehicle TAM is 90M units/year. 20% of all vehicles sold globally last year were BEVs or PHEVs, onward and upward. https://fortune.com/2024/06/19/elon-musk-tesla-china-carmakers-gm-ford-stellantis-bank-of-america/ https://fortune.com/2024/06/19/elon-musk-tesla-china-carmake... (“Bank of America tells Detroit’s Big 3 they can’t make money in China and should just leave the hypercompetitive car market ‘as soon as they possibly can’”)

throwaway19972 2y ago

> They are simply following the market. So is global warming. This excuse rang hollow 30 years ago and it still rings hollow today.

numpad0 2y ago

Or maybe the rest of the world has way less population per area and therefore more gas stations, therefore filling up was less of a problem compared to the US...

PaulHoule 2y ago

Not sure how much it matters. I am thinking about getting a third car for the farm if I could get an inexpensive low range EV. If I am only driving to work with it or to go shopping or see a sports game at my Uni I can just it when I get home. If I need to go see a game in a distant city, well, I’ll take one of the gas cars so my son will take the EV and not the Buick to work one morning.

girvo 2y ago

Sadly (for myself) the only compact-ish plug-in hybrid that exists in my part of the world (Australia) is the Cupra Leon. Neat car, we're genuinely considering it, but it's $80,000AUD, vs. the $50,000AUD that a top-end hybrid Corolla would cost. And they're still much more expensive than my partners VW Polo... worth it for us, as we have a one car shared between the two of us, but I wish there were more compact-ish hybrids available. Honestly same goes for EVs, though the BYD stuff is starting to fill that niche quite nicely. And compact + decent range is sort of at odds with itself.

digging 2y ago

> They are simply following the market. This is badly misinformed. They make the market. When you buy a car, do you have it custom made, or do you select one that actually exists? That's exactly what happened with SUVs. SUVs didn't happen because people were begging car companies to make them something big, dangerous, and wasteful. They happened because car companies in the US found a legal loophole where they could cut costs by skirting safety and emissions regulations, while simultaneously marking up the product as a premium one. Then they ran ads to tell people SUVs were super safe [for the passengers]. So when people started buying SUVs en masse, that wasn't organic demand, it was the result of a successful national misinformation campaign (because modern SUVs and other "light trucks" are so large you're more likely to just drive over your own child without seeing them than even get in a crash).